Wednesday, March 19, 2008

A Brand New Sport!

"Claiming the status of victim has become the new multicultural sport..."

As you can all see from the side bar, I've been reading N.T. Wright's "Evil and the Justice of God". The above quote comes from the opening chapter. One of the basic premises of this book is that because we (in the Western world) so rarely encounter the horrors of evil we usually react to it in immature ways (like invading the 'evil' country and replacing its 'evil' government with a 'good/Western' democracy... but that's a topic for another post).

Another one of these immature reactions is this:


"We can project evil out on to others, generating a culture of blame: it's always everyone else's fault, it's society's fault, it's the government's fault, and I am an innocent victim. Claiming the status of victim has become the new multicultural sport, as people scramble for the moral high ground in which they can emerge as pure and clean, and everybody else is to blame" (Wright 29).

See more reasons why you should all be reading N.T. Wright: here.

We all live in a multicultural society. Do you agree?

What examples can you think of?... without being too "politically incorrect"

Is it true that we react to evil in immature ways?

Why hasn't anyone donated to my Wii fund?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree that as a society we tend to think we are right and we can save the world by helping them to be like us. But really, this is the oppressive nature of the society that we live in and we need not bear any responsibility personally. We are victims of this blame shifting process and it is not our fault. One point for me in the new multicultural sport! Oh and don't blame yourself for no-one giving to your Wii fund, it's the selfish society that we live in. Everyone just thinks about themselves and not your video game needs. It's their fault for being like that not yours. WOOHOO! Two points for me! I like this new sport. But it's not really new is it?

Tim S.

Timothy Braun said...

Hahaha, you got it man!

Yeah, it's not exactly that new; only about as new as the Garden of Eden.

I think it's just more noticable in a multicultural society because we focus so much on our 'rights.'